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In 1993, Vidal lamented that literature had lost its place at the center of American culture: "I said recently to a passing interviewer, 'You know, I used
by raister 3y ago
In 1993, Vidal lamented that literature had lost its place at the center of American culture:
"I said recently to a passing interviewer, 'You know, I used to be a famous novelist.' And the interviewer said, 'Oh, well, you're still very well known. People read your books.' And so I said, 'I'm not talking about me. I'm talking about the category. 'Famous novelist'? The adjective is inappropriate to the noun. It's like being — 'I'm a famous ceramicist.' Well, you can be a good ceramicist. You can be a rich ceramicist. You can be much admired by other ceramicists. But you aren't famous. That's gone."
- Animats 3y agoBeing a famous novelist is mostly branding now. "Tom Clancy", "James Patterson", and "Clive Cussler" are brand names you see in big type, with the name of the actual author in small type below. Patterson has so many authors there seems to be a new Patterson book every two weeks. Clancy has been dead for years. Jaron Lanier grumbles about this. He's a musician from the hippie era, and pines for the day when being a musician was a Big Deal. Before the days of two million Myspace bands running on laptops. As for recycling your dreams, you can always use them to provide clickbait copy for ad sites. Although GPT-4 is taking over that business.
- 542354234235 3y agoMeanwhile, Stephen King is still writing and putting out 1 or 2 books a year.
- Animats 3y agoWith such low productivity, he can't dominate the New Fiction rack. Doesn't scale.